The New York State budget adopted Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday morning included historic language mandating lower class sizes in New York City. The exact wording follows:
In a city school district in a city having a population of one million or more inhabitants such contract shall also include a multi-year (5 year) plan to reduce average class sizes, as defined by the Commissioner for the following grade ranges: (i) pre-kindergarten –third grade; (ii) fourth-eighth grade and; (iii) high school. Such plan shall include class size reduction for low performing and overcrowded schools and also include the methods to be used to achieve such class sizes, such as the creation or construction of more classrooms and school buildings, the placement of more than one teacher in a classroom or methods to otherwise reduce the student to teacher ration; provided, however, that notwithstanding any law, rule or regulation to the contrary, the sole and exclusive remedy for a violation of the requirements of this paragraph shall be pursuant to a petition to the commissioner of education under subdivision seven of section three hundred ten of the education law, and the decision of the commissioner on such petition shall be final and unreviewable.
Key to the successful implementation of this measure is the vesting of the final power in the state Commissioner of Education.
5 Comments:
1 dr_dru
· Apr 2, 2007 at 9:35 am
From the NY Times:
Albany says class sizes will be reduced in five years, the city says there are no specific targets in number of students per class or money spent. More importantly the city cannot be sued over class size.
Our newly reelected leader (and lawyer) says on class size reform, “the language is clear it’s not ambiguous, class size has to be the foundation for reform.” I guess she is right, the language is clear, it’s just meaningless.
No goals, no repercussions, maybe we should all use that rubric for success in our classrooms. After all, it is good enough for The mayor, the chancellor, and our leader.
2 Neil
· Apr 3, 2007 at 10:58 am
Dear Leo (and anyone else reading this), I was wondering if you knew of any good NY parent’s internet forums?
I am really keen to talk to other parents.
Is there any chance you could email me on Balmerneil@hotmail.com if there are?
best wishes
Neil
3 NYC Educator
· Apr 4, 2007 at 10:40 am
Try this blog:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
And this one:
http://enslavedmom.blogspot.com/
Also check out this site:
http://www.classsizematters.org/
And check this regularly:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/classsizematters/
4 Leo Casey
· Apr 4, 2007 at 10:01 am
This is a listserv for CPAC, the citywide group of PTAs which is the official parents group [notwithstanding the name, they are quite critical of Tweed]:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/doe_cpac/
You can also check out this blog, and the links on it:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
5 firebrand
· Apr 12, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Ok maybe I am naive, but why should it take 5 years for the classes to be lowered across the board? Why can’t we, say make the cap on high school classes 32 in Sept. ’07 and lower the caps in middle school and elementary school to whatever is deemed appropriate (by teachers or a compromise between what teachers and principals want) then too?
There wasn’t a problem smacking ten minutes onto our day as of last Feb. Why can’t we just have lower class sizes starting in September.
Are there THAT few newbies who want to be come teachers that we might not be able to accomodate the extra classes? Surely the ATRs would like to have regular schedules…I don’t get why it has to take 5 years.